


With Bitter Herbs

by mimesere



Series: temples made with hands [1]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Fix-It, I am genuinely not sure how to tag this, M/M, Spoilers for episode 174, no betas we die like well you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27072325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimesere/pseuds/mimesere
Summary: All Zolf has to do is connect everything and let himself hope. Simple.
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Series: temples made with hands [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008324
Comments: 25
Kudos: 63





	With Bitter Herbs

Maybe it’s unfair, but Zolf insists that they start with Carter. Barnes gives him a look, which Zolf ignores, and insists on doing the work, which Zolf wants very badly to ignore but can’t, since Barnes is maybe the most stubborn person alive when he’s decided that he’s doing something. So Zolf stands by and watches while Barnes takes a deep breath, his eyes closed like he’s praying, except that Zolf knows that Barnes doesn’t, hasn’t since he was a boy. He opens his eyes, catches Zolf looking and nods at him, mouth set and shoulders straight. 

Carter is laid out in front of them. He’s clean enough, cuts and scrapes stark against his skin, and his clothes are neat, hiding the worst of the damage. That had been a kindness from Barnes -- the clothes, for Carter and Wilde both, dug out of the wreck of the ship and Barnes’ wordless, steady presence at Zolf’s side while they put the two of them to rights -- and it’s a kindness now, that Barnes is undoing it all, unbuttoning the shirt then cutting everything away when it gets awkward to take off, practical and efficient and blessedly quiet. The bruising on Carter’s skin is livid; the whole of his body looks...wrong.

Zolf makes himself look anyway and acknowledge -- again -- that there’s nothing he can do. He’d know. He does know. He reaches for whatever it is, the power that answers him when he asks and demands and begs for it, he reaches and it hums like a plucked string in his soul and it sinks into Carter’s body like water seeping away into sand. The body is just a body, pale and empty and still. Carter is well out of Zolf’s reach.

The druid -- he’s got to learn her name but no one’s told him what it is, lost somewhere in Cel’s frantic relay of her offer and sharp questions from Hamid and Azu and the rush of noise in Zolf’s head, still sounding so much like the ocean that it makes Zolf angry all over again -- puts her hand on Barnes’ shoulder while he dips two of his fingers into the bowl of oil she’d handed him and sets about anointing Carter’s body with it.

She starts speaking at the first touch to Carter’s skin and Zolf can feel her drawing on something, a low, deep hum that resonates in his bones and calls to his own magic. Or maybe that’s just in his head. Or maybe it’s Barnes, who doesn’t pray to anything the way that Zolf doesn’t pray to anything, but whose face has gone intent and focused as he works through the pattern she’d sketched on the ground next to them. It’s not faith the way the cults would have it; there’s no room in Barnes for anything like the trust that takes. 

There’s room for hope, though. Terrible, uncertain hope.

The forehead first, then the eyes and the mouth, and the druid’s power follows, learning Carter’s shape in the lines that Barnes draws through Carter’s heart and hands. Zolf looks away, when things shift under Carter’s skin that have no business moving around like that, but Barnes keeps on like he hasn’t noticed. Barnes leaves oil glistening low on Carter’s pelvis and out to his hips, then down past his absurdly knobby knees and to the top of his feet. The whole thing takes an age and the druid speaks through it all, a low murmur in a language Zolf doesn’t know, but which pulls together like a storm, heavy and electric. Zolf thinks he can smell it, ozone sharp and stinging in his nose. 

And then...something happens. Carter is there and between one blink and the next, there are mushrooms sprouting everywhere, following the still shimmering lines of oil and power. The rich, mineral smell of good dirt just before it rains follows, and flowers after that, budding and blooming and dying in quick succession, over and over again. 

It’s beautiful in a funny sort of way, inexorable and reassuring. 

Azu comes and goes, Hamid at her side. She doesn’t look disapproving, which honestly Zolf had been a little afraid of. He catches a small pulsing glow in the very center of the heart she’s wearing, which she reaches up and touches a few times while she watches whatever is happening with what’s left of Carter’s body. Skraak comes in and watches for a while too, not that Zolf can tell what they’re thinking. Cel hovers, not literally, wringing their hands anxiously and saying something about decomposition and plants that Zolf only half pays attention to. Whatever they’re saying breaks through to Barnes and he looks up at them, confused and about to ask a question when Skraak hisses something in Draconic that shuts Cel up and brings Hamid closer.

Where Carter’s body was, and the flowers and all that, there’s a tangle of branches growing together. Thin branches curve over a central, thicker line, twining around each other and growing out into the rough shape of arms and legs and a skull. It’s nothing like big enough for a human or even a dwarf or a halfling. Moss and vines fill in the spaces between branches; flowers bloom under the arch of forming ribs.

“Oh,” Hamid breathes out and Cel claps their hand over their mouth before much more than a squeak can get out. 

Zolf sits down hard and feels Barnes’ hand settle on his knee, squeezing hard. 

The shift between plant and person happens in a breath; there’s a patch of mushrooms growing, red caps overlapping in the same color and pattern as kobold scales and then they _are_ scales and there’s a kobold lying on the ground in front of them, breathing and snuffling a little in sleep.

Barnes is going to leave bruises on Zolf’s leg with how tight he’s holding on. The kobold -- even now, Zolf can’t let himself believe it’s going to work -- grumbles and opens one eye. 

“You all look miserable,” the kobold says and the voice is all wrong, even for when Carter had been a kobold, lighter and somehow shriller, but they’ve got the right accent and inflection. “It didn’t work then?”

A lot of things happen at once: Cel swoops in like a bloody great bird, coat flaring out behind them like wings, and manages to get Carter up into a hug; Carter starts squawking indignantly about his dangling feet but settles into it after a moment and pats Cel’s shoulder with one clawed hand; Hamid bursts into tears but at least these sound like a healing kind instead of the tearing grief of before, the kind Zolf feels like a stone, pushing down until he can’t breathe; Azu presses her hand against her mouth and closes her eyes, exhaustion in every line of her body, before she kneels down and pulls Hamid into a hug; Skraak snaps something in Draconic and the surviving kobolds come boiling out of whatever nook they’d tucked themselves into. All the tension in Barnes rushes out and he slumps tiredly, head in his hands.

Zolf wants to do the same. Just put his head down and breathe through the tightness in his chest. If he’s being honest, he can’t think of a reason not to, and so he does. Breathing hurts and his eyes are burning and it’s so much like drowning again that he can’t stand it. He reaches out blindly and feels a hand catch his. Barnes again, irritatingly and thankfully present, holding on as tight to Zolf as Zolf is holding on to him. And then there’s another hand on his shoulder, long fingered and trembling and Zolf knows it’s Cel before they fold down and around him, their forehead coming to rest against his shoulder. 

He lets himself just have that for a minute, however little he’s done to earn it. 

Zolf takes a deep breath. The formless noise of too many people talking at once settles into Azu’s low, warm tone stumbling through something undoubtedly heartfelt and the kobolds still having some kind of discussion, the whole thing punctuated by Carter increasingly loud questions.

“What is _happening_?” Carter demands of anyone.

“You died,” says Barnes, pretty much exactly the way Zolf was going to.

“What?” Carter wriggles his way through the press of people and stalks up to Barnes, new tail lashing furiously. “I what?”

“You died. The ship went down and you--we were thrown. You…” Barnes trails off. “I don’t know. I hit a tree and you were already dead when I woke up.”

Azu clears her throat. “You hit a rock, I think. When you landed.” 

“I was done in by a rock?” Carter asks. “I died? And now I’m a kobold?” He looks down at himself and stretches out his arms, then one foot. The frown that Zolf knows translates weirdly onto a kobold’s snout and sharp teeth. 

“A young one,” says Skraak. They say something in Draconic and Hamid answers, then Cel. They go back and forth a bit, with the rest of the kobolds chiming in here and there.

“A journeyman?” Hamid says out loud. Skraak waggles one hand back and forth. 

“An adult,” clarifies Cel. “But young. To be supervised?” they ask and Skraak nods. “This is so--this is fascinating!” They turn to the druid and Zolf nudges them gently with his elbow to cut off what he suspects is about to be an absolute flood of questions that can wait for later. “Can you--do you need to wait? Is there something we can do?”

“I have no need to wait,” the druid says. Zolf doesn’t trust her exactly. He doesn’t not trust her either, but he doesn’t know her and he absolutely doesn’t trust that the only thing they’ll owe is their good will. Mostly he just hopes they’re in a position to pay for this convenient miracle when they need to because he has no intention of turning it down now that he knows it works.

“Right,” says Zolf. He pats Cel’s hand and squeezes Barnes’ before he levers himself up. They let him go and he doesn’t shiver at how cold it feels without them holding on. “Okay. We’ll--I.”

Barnes stands up in a single fluid movement that Zolf doesn’t think he was able to do even when he had two flesh and blood legs. “We’ll get on with it.” Zolf thinks he might be imagining the emphasis that Barnes puts on the we, right up until Barnes raises his eyebrows at Zolf, waiting for him to push back. 

He thinks about it, but there’s still something tight around Barnes’ eyes and Zolf is tired down to his bones. Hamid is quiet but his eyes are wide and beseeching and Azu looks as tired as Zolf feels and she’s still standing there, tall and broad and glowing faintly pink. Cel hasn’t stood up yet, but they’re looking at him too, like he’s got any kind of control over any of them. Carter climbs up Barnes’ side and perches on his shoulder, clutching at Barnes’ hair to balance. 

“Yeah, all right,” Zolf says, giving in to the inevitable. “Let’s go.”

It goes faster with six people working. Well, five people and Carter actually trying to be helpful but being tripped up by his new body. They make quick work of Wilde’s clothes; Barnes goes right for a knife--

“That’s mine!” Carter shouts from where he’s picking the locks on the anti-magic shackles around Wilde’s ankles, pointing at Barnes with one accusing claw. 

Barnes glances down and shrugs. “You weren’t using it.” 

Carter’s sputtering outrage is somehow exactly the same as it ever was and it draws a laugh out of Hamid, who claps his hands over his mouth right after, eyes wide with horror and embarrassment.

\--and Zolf thinks, _we’re never going to hear the end of it about his bloody clothes_. The assumption of it, that there will be someone to hear from, takes the breath out of him and he leans over the low makeshift table they’d stashed Wilde on to make it easier, bracing himself on his forearms and clutching at his hair. What a bastard hope is.

“Mr. Smith? Zolf?” Cel lays a hand on his, untangling it gently from his hair. 

“Is this going to work?” he asks. He wants to hear it from someone else. He can’t--he can’t doubt, not this, and he doesn’t know if he has that kind of certainty in him anymore if he ever did at all. He’s so tired of his best not being enough to keep anyone safe and whole.

“Ah,” they say. “The evidence does seem to suggest so? I would need to see it again to confirm the results.” They smile at him and it’s wobbly at the edges but game to give him the answer he wants. “So we should,er. Do whatever we need to do. For science.”

“For science?” he asks and they nod. He exhales slowly and stands up. “All right then. Can’t disappoint science.”

Barnes and Azu have managed to get Wilde’s clothes off while Zolf was having his moment and when he looks up, the ragged ruin of Wilde’s chest is on clear display. It’s as awful as he remembers and in the whole of his life, the only thing that has it beat is Sasha’s body, cracked open and hollowed out as an experiment for a child almost-god that didn’t know any better.

Azu says something in a language Zolf doesn’t know. He’s pretty sure she’s swearing. Hamid makes a small, distressed noise and turns away for a moment. 

“Oh, um.” Cel trails off. “That’s. Uh. That’s.” They stop there, at a loss. 

Carter swears in several languages Zolf does know and asks, “Was I--”

“Differently bad,” says Barnes and lays Wilde back down with Azu’s help. He picks up the bowl of oil and holds it out to Zolf.

Zolf cannot make himself take it. Everything is tangling up in his head -- Wilde and Sasha and Feryn, Carter and Sassraa and Meerk, the shipwreck and the airshipwreck, every person he’s failed along the way, the way he’s failing Wilde right now -- and he cannot make himself reach out.

Hamid can, though. He steps into the space Zolf’s left, laying a hand on Zolf’s back briefly, shockingly warm, and takes the bowl from Barnes. He draws the sigil on Wilde’s forehead, and like before, the druid starts to speak. Hamid hands the bowl off to Cel, who touches oil slick fingertips to Wilde’s closed eyes and mouth. 

Power gathers around Wilde, the same heavy storm prickling along Zolf’s skin and raising the hair on his arms.

Azu takes the oil from Cel and finds a spot on Wilde’s chest that’s relatively whole and marks his heart and marks him again in the cradle of his hips, lips moving in what Zolf’s sure is a prayer to Aphrodite. Barnes draws the next bit on Wilde’s hands and gives the bowl to Carter, who dips a claw in and finishes the symbols on Wilde’s feet. 

And then Carter takes Zolf’s hand and deposits the bowl into it. Carter’s new claws are sharp and they prick at his hand. Zolf still can’t make anything out of kobold faces and he suspects that he’s doing it all wrong anyway, that maybe the face isn’t where he should be looking, but Carter says, “Go on then,” not unkindly and Zolf nods. 

All that’s left is the connections between points. He’s not an artist like Carter, or a fair hand at cartography like Barnes, or good at putting things together like Cel. He doesn’t understand the theory behind all of this like Hamid does and he doesn’t have Azu’s steadiness or a god to reach out to with a reasonable certainty they’ll answer. He just has himself and that’s never, not once, been enough.

But it’s not about him, is it? Zolf takes another breath and pushes away his doubts and the faint memory of a whiskey drunk and frustrated Wilde calling them both fools for not knowing when to stop. 

Zolf ignores the way his fingers feel clumsy and graceless. All he has to do is connect everything and let himself hope. Simple.

The druid’s hand settles on his shoulder and he does his best not to flinch. He draws the lines on the body -- he can’t let himself think of it as Wilde when Wilde is obviously not there anymore -- and believes with every part of himself that there’s a chance. Whether that chance is for Wilde or them or the world, it doesn’t matter. Someone, somewhere will try to make things better. They’ll fail because everyone fails and they’ll try, because it’s important to try, and they’ll keep doing it and dragging everything along with them and when they’re done, someone else will pick it up and take everything further. He believes that. He does. 

There’s no draw on him, nothing that asks for what he is absolutely willing to give. He doesn’t matter for any of this except as a person who knows Wilde enough to shape the request. 

This is what Zolf knows about Wilde:

He spent a solid hour coming up with increasingly creative and improbable things to call the clerics of Hephaestus, spent another thirty describing in exacting detail the bloodymindedness of Artemisian paladins, and then got to work drinking and sulking until he called them both fools and tottered off to bed because, as he said, he would hate to live down to Grizzop’s expectations.

And when Zolf woke up in the morning, Wilde was already awake and working and shoved over another list of contacts and possible leads for him to follow up on.

“I thought we were fools,” Zolf said, trading the coffee and toast he’d brought with him for the list.

Wilde ran his hands over the wrinkled and stained notes in front of him. And he didn’t smile, exactly; a smirk, maybe, full of a strange, bitter humor that only just reached red-rimmed eyes. “Of course we are. But we’re not wrong.”

This is the other thing he knows: 

Wilde will be absolutely insufferable about everyone being so sentimental.

Wherever a druid’s power comes from, it’s close enough cousins with Zolf’s that it rings him like a bell when it passes through him and he has a very confused sense of it, the scream of an eagle and the burst of growth from a seed and the strange stillness of falling snow.There’s more but it goes by too quickly for Zolf to hold on, following the lines he’d drawn and coiling tighter and tighter into the dense, compact storm of power the druid gathered. 

Zolf holds his breath, waiting.

It breaks. If it had been a real storm, they’d all be drenched in the kind of sudden deluge that comes down in sheets and is gone as quickly. Instead of rain or thunder, all that energy goes through Wilde’s body and comes out as a burst of white filament and bright fungi and the vivid green wave of moss, flowing over the body until the only suggestion it was ever a person at all is in the vague hint of a shape, and even that’s gone a few minutes later. Years of growth and death and growth again pass in moments. 

No one leaves this time. Barnes sits down next to Zolf and Cel manages to find a way to wrap around both of them. Clusters of herbs and ivy and vines heavy with grapes live and die in the time it takes Azu to take off most of her armor so she can sit comfortably on Zolf’s other side. Hamid finds a space between them and Zolf is surprised all over again by how much heat he gives off now. Carter can’t stay still any better as a kobold than he could as a person and ranges between them and the rest of the kobolds, who are still in intense discussion about something. 

Branches start growing together again, sprays of purple flowers bursting along their length as they stretch into the forms Zolf studied alongside hymns to Poseidon and healing work on ships and in docks. Not a kobold this time, not that it would have mattered, and too large for a halfling or gnome or a goblin. Not heavy enough for a dwarf or, he thinks, an orc. Not as tall as Wilde was either. 

There are flowers everywhere, a riot of scent and color filling in the still forming skull and ribs, winding around the spine and down the legs. Mint grows in profusion along the sternum and wild parsley in the space between the radius and ulna. There’s more, all manner of plants that Zolf’s never had to know. He might ask Cel later; he’s sure they’ll know. 

The body takes shape in waves. It is smaller than Wilde was, not so much taller than Sasha had been. Human, Zolf thinks and then, ridiculously, that Wilde will be put out to have missed out on a new shape again. 

And then it’s done. There’s definitely a person in front of them, all gold hair and freckles and young enough to be a shock. A journeyman, Skraak had said, and that seems right enough. Breathing. 

Their fingers twitch and the rhythm of their breath changes to something deeper and more even but they still don’t open their eyes. 

It goes on like this for long enough that Zolf starts to wonder if something’s gone wrong. 

Hamid breaks the silence and it makes Zolf jolt in surprise. “Oh, for—We know you’re awake!”

There’s nothing familiar in this person’s face. The scar is gone, obviously, and the eyes are different, and the voice, when it comes, isn’t what Zolf’s gotten used to. 

But the words—

“Do we? I must confess to feeling somewhat underdressed for this highly unexpected occasion.” He turns his head to look at the lot of them. “Or you’re all very overdressed. And outdoors?”

“Wilde,” says Zolf. The relief is dizzying.

Wilde smiles brightly, easily, a prologue to saying something sharp and frowns immediately. “What—“ He brings a hand up to his cheek, feeling carefully at the smooth skin. He sits up and looks around at the hastily erected tent. “Zolf.”

“You died,” Zolf blurts out. He can feel the appalled look Hamid gives him. 

Azu chimes in. “You got better.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Cel adds helpfully. 

Wilde looks down at himself. “I think—is that my shirt on the ground? Who—“ He took a breath, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “I think I would like some clothing that hasn’t been hacked to pieces and a more detailed explanation.”

The clothes are easy enough. Carter goes scrambling through the wreck and comes out triumphant with Wilde’s things. They’re too big but Wilde just shrugs and rolls up his sleeves and takes a knife to the ends of his trousers. 

The explanation is harder. Zolf sends Barnes to get Earhart because he’ll be damned if he’s telling this story more than once and she should know what happened in case it’s relevant. 

Zolf lays it out plainly: the aurora and the misfiring instruments, the ship tacking itself and not being able to see for hours, the missing engine. Cel adds in their side of things from belowdecks and confesses to falling asleep this time, glancing apologetically at him and clenching and unclenching their hands. 

He doesn’t know why knowing he’d been alone that whole time sends him all over cold, but it does and he folds his hands together to hide the shaking. It’s been a lot, is all. The non-mutiny and handling Earhart and the ship and the crew and the switching around bodies. He’s tired and hungry and this is just what happens when a crisis is mostly over and there’s time to breathe. 

“That’s it,” he says. “We went down hard and you went over the side.”

Wilde is silent for a long few moments. “I don’t remember any of it,” he says finally. “The party is the last really clear memory and then nothing.”

“Just as well,” Zolf says. “I’d forget it if I could.”

Wilde hmms thoughtfully. “And you’re sure of this druid person?” 

“Sohra,” Cel says. “Her name is Sohra. And yes. I’ve heard of--it’s not unheard of to bring people back like this and there’s definitely been, you know, trade from this area. But maybe not with Meritocrat controlled regions? I’ve never--”

“Does it matter?” Zolf asks Wilde. “She says there’s no price. And even if there were, I’d pay it. I’d pay it twice and call it a good deal.”

“She could be lying,” WIlde points out. 

“It doesn’t matter. I’d do it again. If she came to me and said the cost to get you or Carter or Sassraa or Meerk or whoever back was that I’d have to crawl into a hole and stay there digging out rocks for the rest of my life, I’d do it and be glad of the chance.” Zolf swallows hard against the tightness in his throat and wants desperately to be anywhere else doing something useful. 

“I offered her anything she wanted,” Cel says into the silence that follows. “So, it’d be me. And I’d pay it too.”

“Of course I would,” says Azu. 

“Me too,” Hamid says. “I might bargain first, though.”

Wilde lets out a long breath. “You all need a keeper.”

Earhart snorts. Zolf had almost forgotten she was there at all. “Isn’t that your job, Mr. Wilde?”

Zolf takes that as a cue that he can leave, mutters something about food and does so as quickly as possible. The galley on the ship isn’t safe to use until they can right things and he makes do with a fire and whatever Siggif and Kiko have managed to salvage from the ship. He sorts through the cans and dried goods, separating out the whole and undamaged from the ones that won’t last however long they’re going to be grounded. Water he can sort out, but there’s a running calculation in his head about how long they can afford to be stalled before the food situation becomes dire even with him doing some work to stretch it out. 

The resulting combination is a mess but he chucks it into a pot anyway. It’ll be soup and porridge for a while then. He can hide a lot of sins in a pot of soup.

Sorting out the food situation takes a good hour where no one asks him for anything and his hands have mostly stopped shaking by the time he notices that Azu’s sitting nearby, her chin propped up on one hand and watching him calmly. He doesn’t like how the rich brown of her skin is dulled with exhaustion and hands her an apple.

“Eat that,” he says. “Can we skip through you telling me off for staying too busy and me telling you off for not taking care of yourself and the part where neither of us is gonna stop until we have to?”

“I’d like that,” she says. She makes quick work of the apple and he hands her another one. She looks better after that one and it settles a little of the energy buzzing angrily under his skin. “Can I help?”

“Can you make bread?” 

“I can make chapati,” she says firmly and gathers up what she needs, finding a clear place to sit and getting to work. He watches and asks questions and tries rolling and coiling one himself. It’s as much a mess as the soup, but it feels nice to learn something new.

“I am going to tell you off,” Azu says while she’s frying the first disc. “When we have time.”

“We’ll find a quiet place and have a good shout at each other,” Zolf promises.

She smiles at him. “Where no one else can see?”

“Yeah. I’ll even let you have first go.” 

He leaves her to finish up and starts stacking up bowls and spoons. Like that’s a signal, everyone starts coming over in ones and twos, and he feeds them and counts them off in his head. They’re still down two with Meerk and Sassraa gone and he wonders what Skraak is going to do. Hamid wants them back, he’s pretty sure, and there’s a part of Zolf that does too, if only so he doesn’t feel their absence needling him with his utter inability to keep them safe. He’ll back Skraak, whatever he chooses, even if Hamid doesn’t like it.

When Azu’s done, he hands her two bowls and nods to where Kiko is waiting. He does like the way she flushes and ducks her head before pushing him away gently and the way that Kiko bumps against Azu’s shoulder as they walk away. 

Wilde comes up beside him, the last entry on Zolf’s mental tally. “They are adorable, aren’t they?”

“It won’t last,” Zolf says, turning away from Azu and Wilde both to fill another bowl. 

“No,” Wilde agrees. “But worth it all the same.”

Zolf hands the soup over without looking. 

Wilde takes it and sets it aside, then wraps long, cool fingers around Zolf’s wrist. “I know I’m not the beauty you’ve grown accustomed to, but is it so hard to even look?”

“Don’t be stupid.” But Zolf does look and makes himself take it all in. Wilde is shorter by a good few inches and young enough to still look unfinished, or maybe it’s just the scar being gone that does it, Zolf doesn’t know. The blond hair is still a surprise, gone ruddy in the light from the fire. He doesn’t look like Wilde anymore, not really, except maybe around the eyes and the arch of his eyebrows. And the set of his shoulders and mouth. The tilt of his head. “You’re still you.”

Wilde smiles at him and leans in close, letting go of Zolf’s wrist. Zolf feels a pang at that and pulls his hand back, rubbing a little at where Wilde had held on. “Would you like to know something else?”

“Is it more nonsense?” 

Wilde snaps his fingers. There’s something light and happy around the edges of Wilde’s still-smiling mouth. 

Zolf raises his eyebrows at the apparent nothing that’s happened.

“You are terrible for my ego,” sighs Wilde and then he’s got his hands along Zolf’s jaw, tilting his head up until he sees the four spheres of light, twirling above them.

“Oh,” Zolf says. Then, “you can’t blame me for not noticing when there’s light everywhere. We’re standing by a fire!”

Wilde laughs and that’s more of a shock than the magic. “Terrible,” he says fondly. “Were you born without an ounce of drama in you?”

“You’ve got enough for ten people,” Zolf grumbles, reaching up to hold on to Wilde’s wrists. He has some notion to take a step back or lean in, maybe? He doesn’t know at all.

“You’ll forgive me then,” Wilde says and Zolf doesn’t have time to ask for what before Wilde’s kissing him, mouth gentle against his. It lasts...a bit. 

And when it’s done, when Wilde pulls back, it’s not far at all, just enough to rest his forehead against Zolf’s. 

“What the _fuck_ ,” Zolf breathes out.

“Absolutely worth it,” Wilde says. “I’d do it again. If you’re amenable, of course.”

Zolf stares at him. “If I’m...yes?”

“Oh, excellent,” Wilde says and kisses him again. There aren’t fireworks, no swooping passion or a storm of feelings to drown him. There’s just Wilde and his unmistakable presence, warm and alive, his pulse beating strongly under Zolf’s fingers.

It solves nothing. They’re still grounded and Svalbard looms over them and there are a million other things to sort out and deal with. The world is still ending and they don’t know how to fix it. But in that moment, Zolf can see through to the other side of things and thinks that there might be something there to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> *putting on my pathfinder nerd hat*  
> 1) Reincarnation is a hell of a spell.  
> 2) I did fudge some spell details. I personally thought it was very satisfying to use people as the divine focus for the spell and also fudged the reincarnation table a little, mostly to replace humanoids we haven't met in canon yet by upping the percentages on everyone else but did get the results here when I rolled it out.  
> 3) There is a hilarious alternate version of this where Wilde comes back as a goblin or a dwarf.  
> 4) Zolf is technically able to raise the dead -- that spell is available to a cleric of his level -- but i sincerely doubt they had the material components for it unless Carter stashed some jewels somewhere.


End file.
